Who Farted?: the comedy of breaking wind and the tragedy of climate change

REVIEW by Drew Rowsome

14 JUN 2019

"Are we all going to die because of farts?"

Metaphorically, according to the documentary Who Farted?, we very well might. The tagline - "A climate change movie you can get behind" - gives a clue as to Who Farted?'s true devious intentions: tackle a serious subject in a humorous and sly manner. Because who can resist a good fart joke?

Like all good documentaries, Who Farted? is packed with information and revelations. Viewers will learn more about gaseous secretions and eruptions than one ever thought possible. The narrator, Albert Nerenberg who is also the co-director, talks to a variety of experts on the physical, psychological, social and political implications of farting. A blogger who claims that "a perfect marriage is someone you can fart in front of," a religious expert who asserts that "Satan farted his way out of God's grace," and a performance artist and "fart liberationist" who shouts "Everybody's got a butthole and you have to let it out!"

We travel back in time to the Moulin Rogue in Paris where Le Petomane was a sensation with his flatulent feats, echoed by today's Mr Methane who has a disastrous appearance on Britain's Got Talent. We learn that herrings communicate by farting, and that the whoopie cushion (the world's most popular novelty item) was invented and originally manufactured in Toronto. The talking heads are subordinate to clever animation (particularly a delightfully slapstick tale from The Arabian Nights brought to vivid life), and a compilation of babies farting will reduce the most prim and proper to helpless giggles. And it all climaxes at the World Farting Championship in Finland which, is won by the Russian champion who is as oddly appealing in his William Higgins-esque faux innocence and physique as he is thunderous.

But Nerenberg is also a renowned performance artist/filmmaker - Stupidity, Let's All Hate Toronto, Laughology, Boredom - known for hoaxes with serious points about human nature at their core. His co-director Nik Sheehan will be familiar for his astounding documentaries No Sad Songs, Symposium: The Ladder of Love, and God's Fool, all crucial gay texts. With those pedigrees, the duo can't be expected to just entertain us with farts. Though the laughs and 'aha' moments come thick and fast, there is a deeper intention beneath all the breaking wind.

Who Farted? is framed around Nerenberg's reaction to a school report his daughter and her friend created on the effects of cow fart methane on the climate. From there Nerenberg explores not only farting, but also a gulag-like research centre where cow methane emissions are measured, a re-wilding English estate, and attends a Global Climate Action Summit. The connections are subliminal but Who Farted? posits that if we can't accept our place in nature, our own natural existence (ie: we all fart. Much more than we imagine or at least admit), how can we combat climate change? The message is not hammered home but rather delivered conceptually, particularly in the sumptuous visuals of Nerenberg, always impeccable in a suit that looks like it was borrowed from David Lynch, wandering through vast wastelands of either environmental destruction or Eden like splendour.

Who Farted? is a bit of a shell game, a silent fart that is only detected after by the aroma. We quickly realize that the school presentation has been recreated (and if there is any justice, there is an acting nomination in the offing for the girl who utters "Are we all going to die because of farts?"with such utter despair that it could be a Meryl Streep catch phrase) and that all the comedy of farting is being used manipulatively to lull us into actually pondering the global implications. Subversion through deadpan preaching with a soupcon of sulphur. So yes, Who Farted? not only makes one think about the world we are destroying but it also releases one from any lingering guilt or embarrassment about one's own anal eruptions. And I personally will be forever fascinated and delighted to know that the grand prize of the World Farting Championship is: 57 cans of pea soup.